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Zelda Maybe Racist....(caution for Easily Offended)

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Does anyone else think that zelda may be a bit racist.

I see this because ganon is Black or (african gerudo), but he is obviously not white, but he is the only actual human in the game that dies. Who also thinks Nintendo should have paid more attention to that.

FYI: Im white not racist have Black family there Hilarious just wondering on other opinions.
Sorry if this is in the wrong forum I couldnt decide between this one or mature discussion.
 

*M i d n a*

Æsir Scribe
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Entity
I thought Ganon looked a little green in WW. :P

And no, I doubt there is any racism in Zelda, I just looked at Ganon as a cool bad-*** boss.
 
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Yes Ganon is a awesome boss but i still say there are a few problems with him being the random one out of all the other people.
 

Kaiser Kami

Warrior of Kaiser
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It can't be called Racist because the Gerudos lived in deserts. If you are underneath a scorching sun the whole time your skin will tan...and eventually you will become black (either in your life time if you dodged skin cancer or for generations to come) I like Ganon being black, and I'm black, but do I care no. Skin means nothing to me it's just you are a different shade from others. Ganon being black means nothing to me and should mean nothing to gamers. If I see some black guy destroying stuff and I'm dressed in green I'm gonna beat him not because he is colored diffently it's because he's destroying stuff. It can be seen racist within the ignorant eye of ignorant people with their ignorant mind...but this is personal for me, Ganon would not be intimidateing if he was white, chinese, mexican, or even all the other races, black seems more his style probably because I grew up with that, and in Wind Waker would you be scared if a fat other colored person other than black took out two swords then the camera zooms in onto his face? Just a little humor thought. To end it, it can't be considered racist because naturally if you live in the desert you will get darker, that's just how the natrual order is.
 

Hanyou

didn't build that
Does anyone else think that zelda may be a bit racist.

I see this because ganon is Black or (african gerudo), but he is obviously not white, but he is the only actual human in the game that dies. Who also thinks Nintendo should have paid more attention to that.

This is misguided on several levels. First, if there are allegations of racism because of Ganondorf, the culture he emulates is clearly not African but Middle-Eastern (which may have something to do with Africa, but little to do with "black people"). Secondly, several people who are "white" die in Zelda games. Thirdly, what does it matter if he dies--if you want to allege racism, it may be better to pick on the fact that he is evil than whether he dies or not.

Fourth, it's all kind of irrelevant because Zelda games aren't "racist." People have a tendency to cry "racism" when they see people of certain races portrayed a certain way in stories, but really, there are a lot of factors that go into something like that. One is cultural context in the story itself. The "races" of Hyrule are different than the races of our world. Another is cultural context of the people who produced the media. You don't see many black characters come from Japan because, presumably, there aren't many black people over there. I mean, why the hell does about 90% of the population in Pokemon games look distinctly Japanese, even when the most recent generation takes place in (supposedly) America? There's no ill intent, it's just that people work with what they know.

The middle-eastern-style aesthetic is pretty cool, and it fits the Gerudo pretty well. Ganondorf first shows up in the context of the Gerudo, but, oddly enough, doesn't look remotely Middle-Eastern like his people; he has green skin and pretty standard Caucasian features. You could argue that villainy stems from a middle-eastern style culture in Zelda games (and you'd be right), but Ganondorf himself kind of stands alone as a villain. He just is what he is. He could honestly be portrayed as a black character and I wouldn't care, but in this case, he's not "black" at all. Actually, to say he's black appears to be a bit racially insensitive.

FYI: Im white not racist have Black family there Hilarious just wondering on other opinions.

I don't understand what you're saying at all here. Can you please clarify?
 
Joined
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The middle eastern theme is well founded. I believe that on the first edition of Ocarina of Time there were some symbols that looked similar to the symbol of Islam that were removed from later editions. There was also recently a ZD article that noted the Muslim-esque chanting removed from the Fire Temple soundtrack. You might possibly be able to argue that it was racist towards the Middle Eastern cultures (or Islam), but since Nintendo removed that it is clear they did not want to cause offence.
 
Joined
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I was wondering if anyone else thought it looked a lil racist thats it and no i see now it doesnt cause the dude that commented said it would look right if he was mexican chinese or whatever thats all.
 
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I agree with Hanyou 100%. If was going to cry "racism" about Zelda, it would be because of the fact Ganondorf dies, not because hes evil. And as Hanyou also stated, Ganondorf knid of stands alone among the Gerudo because he's pure evil. The Gerudo may be theives, but I believe at their core that their good people (if not a bit misguided).
 
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uh kybyrian dude actually how do you know hes not black he could be did you go ask a the creators of zelda yourself ha nope ya didnt and 00steven you have no idea if its being racist and as for the idc and the gerudos could be african how do you know they aint once again did you go ask a the creators of zelda yourself ha nope ya didnt
 

Linknerd09

Luigi Fan
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It can't be called Racist because the Gerudos lived in deserts. If you are underneath a scorching sun the whole time your skin will tan...and eventually you will become black (either in your life time if you dodged skin cancer or for generations to come) I like Ganon being black, and I'm black, but do I care no. Skin means nothing to me it's just you are a different shade from others. Ganon being black means nothing to me and should mean nothing to gamers. If I see some black guy destroying stuff and I'm dressed in green I'm gonna beat him not because he is colored diffently it's because he's destroying stuff. It can be seen racist within the ignorant eye of ignorant people with their ignorant mind...but this is personal for me, Ganon would not be intimidateing if he was white, chinese, mexican, or even all the other races, black seems more his style probably because I grew up with that, and in Wind Waker would you be scared if a fat other colored person other than black took out two swords then the camera zooms in onto his face? Just a little humor thought. To end it, it can't be considered racist because naturally if you live in the desert you will get darker, that's just how the natrual order is.

I agree. Under the sun you will get tanned. So yeah there's no racism in that. But I also agree with 00steven. It's just a video game. Unless there's racism, Nintendo would have told us.
 
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Why would Nintendo randomly tell us " Hey Zelda fans were being racist so uh. hope you don't get offended" uh no that makes no sense.

and yall keep sayin sun makes you darker I know that but ganon ain't. tan he's burned and if its the suns fault then why aren't the girl gerudos dark like ganon
 

Djinn

and Tonic
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I certainly do not think the Gerudo are any form of racist caricature in a video game. Generally any writer, or in this case game developer, will take a real world reference or design and tweak it a bit when they add it to their story. In Zelda they wanted to add a people that lived in the western desert. Well they could have completely made up some overly fantastic desert race for their fantasy setting, or simply take a look at some real world examples of some cultures that happen to live in a desert and use that along with a few extra fantasy elements. One could also argue that middle eastern designs and stylings are optimum for living in such a region and anyone else might adopt a similar look. On top of building on something that is firmly established, people will see and instantly understand the real world reference. Is it racist to model a desert dwelling people after a real world example of a desert dwelling people? I believe adding different people and cultures helps a setting out and breaks from the earlier games monoculture settings. Especially in this case the Gerudo are a different people living in a different region apart from the Hylians. It makes sense that they would not resemble them in culture or appearance.

This is also why the Hylians in their very medieval European anachronistic designs live in castles and villages. They are meant to be seen and understood by the player that they are modeled after western European culture and live in a similar lifestyle. Many players and readers alike would rather see cultures depicted in stories to be similar to or at least built upon real world examples. That way there is some grounding in reality and it gives a good reference to the viewer.

Ganondorf was most likely depicted in OoT as an adaptation. Nintendo needed to make him a human character instead of the very cartoonish looking blue pig from earlier games. Well ALTTP already established him as the leader of a group of enchanted thieves before he found the triforce. So in looking for some way to depict a thief character that is also a credible villain for a story and fairly magical for the setting they look to other stories that had a similar type of character. The 1001 Nights tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves has such a depiction, a fearsome thief group uses magic to conceal their hidden treasure. It has been a popular story that has been adapted many times in modern media over the years. A well known story involving magical thieves could inspire the developers to adapt the concept to their own creations. As it has in turn inspired many further middle eastern fantasy stories starring various magical thieves as villain characters after it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_and_the_Cobbler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_of_Bagdad_(1940_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_and_the_King_of_Thieves

In this Ganondorf would actually be a current example of a very well established fantasy storytelling trope as the mystical thief king from the desert. Nintendo did not invent this at all since these tales have been told since at least the 17th century and have been retold in various formats and versions. However Ganondorf and the rest of the Gerudo hading red hair and green eyes kind of breaks the argument that Nintendo is depicting a specific race in the game. As they do not actually look like anyone that exists in the real world.
 

BoxTar

i got bored and posted something
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Pacific Northwest
I don't think it was racist. I doubt Nintendo put any thought into race or even gender. Notice that he is also the only man in his village. Are we going to say it's sexist? Of course not. Nintendo was using lore or someother type of idea for their story. I doubt they took race into consideration.
 

navi_the_fairy

Spirit of the Forest
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You know, since Ganondorf is the only male Gerudo ever shown, it COULD be possible that the darker colored skin is just a trait of the males of that race. Since there are no other men shown from that race, there's no way to be sure. And no, I did not ask Nintendo this myself. This is just an idea. I don't believe Nintendo was being outright racist due to the fact that the theme from the fire temple and the Gerudo symbol was changed. If they changed those things to avoid offending people, then they surely would have changed Ganondorf's color in later games if many people also saw that as offensive. That's just the color of his skin, nothing else. The color of people's skin doesn't matter; it's what's in their hearts that count. Ganondorf had an evil heart, so he was vanquished. It did not have anything to do with his skin color.
 
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